


A Different Lifetime

by notjustmom



Series: IronStrange Bingo [6]
Category: Agent Carter - Fandom, Doctor Strange (2016), Iron Man (Movies)
Genre: Fluffy Angst, M/M, Minor Character Death, Soul Mate AU, angsty fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-04
Updated: 2019-03-05
Packaged: 2019-11-09 07:40:21
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 2,117
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17997698
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/notjustmom/pseuds/notjustmom
Summary: IronStrange Bingo Prompt: Soul Mates





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I'm borrowing the Jarvis and Mrs. Jarvis from the Agent Carter series, for this verse.

The first time Tony Stark heard the phrase 'soul mates', he was five. He was in the kitchen with Mrs. Jarvis, watching her roll out pie crust as she kept an eye on her 'stories', when someone on the screen sobbed out, "but we're soul mates... we are meant to be together." 

Tony waited until the story had switched over to a commercial, as he knew better than to interrupt one of Mrs. Jarvis's morning stories, then asked quietly, "what're soul mates, Mrs. J?"

"Soul mates, hmmm? It's what Mr. J and I are."

He scrunched his face up at her and shrugged his shoulders, then pouted, as he crossed his arms at her. "But what's it mean?" Tony asked.

"Patience, Master Anthony. It means that there is one person put on this earth who is just for you. You just have to be patient enough to find them."

"D'ya think Mother and Father are?" Tony asked after a moment.

"No. I don't. Who's to know what happened there, but when it happens to you, you'll know it, lovey. Now, go fetch me that pie plate, hmm?"

"How d'ya know? I mean - when did you know with Mr. J?"

She stopped and watched as Jarvis entered the kitchen for his elevenses. "I knew the minute I saw him."

"So it took forever."

"Not quite forever, lovey, but it usually happens when you least expect it."

"Great." He slid down from the stool he had been sitting on, and retrieved the pie plate for her, then climbed back up on the stool and watched as she unfolded the crust and pushed and prodded it until it was just the way she wanted it, then added the apples that had been tossed with cinnamon and sugar, and dabbed little bits of butter over them, before she laid the top crust over it all. Even then he knew it wasn't magic, but she made it seem that it was.

 

He was twelve when Mrs. Jarvis died, and he saw Jarvis cry for the first and only time. It was the day he swore to himself not only would he never fall in love, but he also decided he wouldn't have a soul mate. If it caused the strongest man he knew that much pain to lose his, he decided he wouldn't take the chance. It wasn't worth it.

 

Sometimes life has other plans.

 

As a child, Stephen Strange had been raised to believe he had a soul mate and he put all his faith and heart into believing it was true. At three, he started having dreams about a boy, slightly older, with eyes the color of dark copper. He had dark, wavy hair, and he was beautiful when he smiled. In his dreams, he smiled all the time, until one day, the boy stopped smiling, and his eyes lost their shimmer. He kept dreaming of the boy, even after he stopped smiling, and the boy continue to grow up in his dreams, until the day Stephen stopped remembering his dreams, and the boy was forgotten.

The boy was forgotten until the day he winked at Tony Stark.


	2. Chapter 2

Perhaps we are getting too far ahead of the story, or maybe we meet them at just the right time. Before. Before everything that could go wrong, does. Perhaps in this one sliver of time, they can change not only their sad histories, the histories written down and passed from generation to generation, but the fate of the universe as well...

Off we go, then.

 

Tony spent much of his life doing his best to feel as little as possible. He had seen early on in his life, how love made those he cared for suffer, so after the deaths of his parents, he focused his attention on rebuilding the Stark name and spared as little attention as possible to what Jarvis would have insisted on calling, "affairs of the heart," when he was still alive. Even after he had lost the love of his life, he had still believed - "Don't wait up, J.A.R.V.I.S."

"Wouldn't dream of it, Sir." Tony snorted as he grabbed his keys, then walked out the door, jumped into his car and sped off.

This night would be no different, he thought to himself as he pulled up in front of his favored bar.

It was the night before he left for Afghanistan with Rhodey, another sales-pitch, as his father had always called them, and he was brilliant at it, he, like his father before him, had loved the drama of blowing things up just because he could. It was simple, he kept telling himself, he just drew up the designs and built them, it wasn't his fault if someone actually used them. If he were honest with himself, he never gave a second thought to the damage they could actually do in real life. If he were truly honest with himself, the last time he engaged in real life was over twenty-five years ago, when he had watched one of the few people he had ever loved be buried in the ground and swore he would never make the mistake of falling in love with anyone. Besides, he was certain there was no way his soul mate was still out there, if they ever had been. After all, he was nearly forty, and he had never once -

Damn.

He looked up at the bartender with the glowing, green eyes? No, they were silver. Silver eyes, who the hell had silver eyes? People had grey eyes, hazel eyes, he'd even met a few people with nearly violet eyes, but he had eyes of silver, and he had winked at him. He wasn't his normal bartender, the one who'd had the run of this bar since his father's time.

"Where's Paul?" He asked the owner of the silver eyes, a bit rudely, not that he ever noticed his own tone of voice.

"Not here, obviously, he's my father." The man behind the bar stated brusquely, a bit annoyed.

"I didn't know he had a family."

"No. I'm sure you -" Stephen's voice stuttered, then stopped completely as Tony removed his sunglasses and Stephen stared into the eyes of the boy he used to dream of. "Sorry. You, just - hmm. He's home sick with the flu. I happened to be in town for once, and offered to fill in so he wouldn't have to close tonight. You're Tony Stark. Of everyone in the world -" He shook his head, then cleared his throat. "A double?"

"Uhm, yeah. What did you mean -"

"Nothing. It's just -"

"Just what?" Tony insisted with a smile, and Stephen saw the remnants of the smile he used to fall asleep thinking of, and shook his head again, as if trying to reset himself.

"You'll think I'm crazy."

"I've always thought it's those who insist they're normal in this fucked up world, that are the truly crazy ones." Tony grinned at him and watched as he expertly poured him a double of the best top shelf single malt that his father had kept hidden away. He picked up the glass and took a deep breath in, then studied the amber color in what light there was in the dimly lit bar, saluted the man who couldn't keep his eyes off of him, and took a sip. "Damn, that's even better than the stuff I normally buy. Tell me, anyway."

"As a child, I was told, and I believed that we all have soul mates..." He stopped as Tony nearly choked on his next sip, and waited until his coughing fit was over, then pushed a glass of water in front of him. "You know, the idea that we all have someone meant for us - but then I grew up, and stopped believing in fairy tales. But you, have his eyes, the eyes of the person I dreamed of for years, and your smile is nearly the same, except when I was a child, your eyes shimmered, and your smile, it still had love in it - not sure if that makes sense." He shrugged and went to pull another draft, then disappeared into the kitchen. After an hour of being stuck in the weeds, he returned to the bar, and noticed that Tony hadn't finished his drink, and was just staring into the mirror in front of him.

"Like I said, crazy."

Tony shook his head and whispered, "when did you stop dreaming of me, sorry, of him?"

"1982."

"How- how do you remember the year?"

"I was ten. I just stopped remembering my dreams that year, on my birthday, actually, it was like a faucet had been turned off. I thought maybe it was just my time to stop, 'thinking childish things...'"

"When? Sorry, I know it's none of my business, but when is your birthday?" Tony's voice had dropped to a hush and Stephen had barely heard him over the din of the bar.

"April -"

"21st. It was a Tuesday -"

"Yes."

Tony blinked at him for a moment and looked into his eyes, and as ridiculous as it seemed especially to rational part of his brain, he knew more than he had ever known anything in his life, that he wouldn't be going to Afghanistan in the morning, or ever again. Mrs. J had said he would know the minute he saw his soul mate, but maybe it took him so long because he had forgotten how to see until that moment.

"Do you mind if I just sit here until you close?"

Stephen shook his head and offered Tony his hand. "Stephen Strange. When I'm not tending bar, I'm usually -"

"Neurosurgeon," Tony murmured as he took his hand and studied the elegant fingers for a long moment before letting go. "New York."

"You'll stay?"

"I'll stay as long as you want, wherever you want."

"Crazy."

"Certifiable." 

Tony smiled at him, and Stephen's eyes glittered at him as he pressed a single finger over the smile and nodded. "There you are. Honestly. I had -"

"- lost hope a long time ago."

A regular at the bar rolled her eyes and groaned. "Damnit, Stephen, kiss the man already. There's an order to all this stuff, you ain't supposed to be finishing each other's sentences until after you start kissing, don't you geniuses know anything?"

Stephen snorted, but Tony reached over and pushed his fingers into the softest curls he'd ever felt, then pulled him into a kiss that left them both breathless and the once noisy bar fell silent for thirteen and a half seconds. Stephen cleared his throat and announced the next round was on him, and the bar settled back into its normal bubbly chaos.

"We'll be a -" Stephen muttered under his breath, as he began pulling draft after draft.

"- complete disaster." Tony finished the thought, then picked up his abandoned drink and tossed it back, then gently placed it back on the bar, and realized to his astonishment that he couldn't stop smiling. "But, I'm willing to give it a try if you are."

"I'm a bit set in my ways," Stephen offered as he began pouring out a row of shots.

"I don't mind," Tony whispered and Stephen glanced over at him.

"You're serious."

"I am."

"It's, this isn't -"

"-rational? Logical? No. It isn't, but I'm tired of - "

"Yeah. I know. I'm tired of being alone too."

"You won't be anymore."

Stephen looked into Tony's eyes for a long moment, and Tony held his breath, until he saw him nod, then smile at him. "I know."


	3. Chapter 3

"Morning."

Stephen rolled over and bit his lip, then looked into Tony's smiling copper eyes and sighed. "I have to go back today -"

"Yes."

"You'll just drop everything and -"

"Yes."

"But -"

Tony leaned over and brushed his lips over one sharp cheekbone, then the other, and whispered, "my life began eight hours, thirteen minutes and twenty-six seconds ago. The world doesn't need new ways to blow itself up, but I do know that I need you. Need is the wrong word. Actually, no, it isn't. I know, I do know that this, us - it's mad, truly bananas, but honestly? I don't care."

"What will you do?"

"I don't know, make baby bottles?"

Stephen laughed, then pressed a finger over Tony's lips, and closed his eyes as he breathed a kiss against it. He opened his eyes again and saw the rest of his life in Tony's eyes, then nodded, and after a moment, mumbled out shyly, "they'll be amazing baby bottles."

"I love you, too," Tony whispered, and his smile took Stephen's breath away.

"Yeah. That. That's what I meant to say."

"I heard you."


End file.
